Backlash Part 1

Chapter 61: The Jingshi

'This isn't the time to be moping. We need to make plans for how to save more people during the war.' Wei Wuxian silently reprimanded himself. He gave Lan Xichen a small smile and nodded his head in agreement.

"I would appreciate that." Wei Wuxian said genuinely. He really would love to not need to use demonic cultivation. Granted he had already been through the part of learning how to do it, but there were some things about demonic cultivation that you couldn't get around. For example, it was uncomfortable. Spiritual energy was warm and pleasant. Resentful energy was cold and... sharp. Wei Wuxian didn't have another word to really describe the painful bite that resentful energy had.

When he wasn't using it, it was fine... well mostly fine. He was just cold... all the time. Though he was happy that his golden core lessened that burden. A typical cultivator could use their spiritual energy to keep themselves warm even in conditions that would be uncomfortable for the average person. However, Wei Wuxian's body was filled with resentful energy. Wei Wuxian had more or less become accustomed to always being cold after the war. Especially when he moved back to the Burial Mounds. Resentful energy was so frigidly cold that his joints would sometimes feel frozen stiff.

The golden core and spiritual energy he had now lessened the impact, but he still easily became chilled. His spiritual energy could no longer be run to keep him warm as temperatures dropped. It could only mitigate the frigid temperature of the other energy in his body. Aside from all the other reasons that made him love being held by Lan Wangji, the fact that Lan Wangji seemed to radiate heat was a wonderful addition. Lan Wangji was so warm that the heat radiated right through their clothes and soaked into Wei Wuxian's skin. He loved it.

There was also another option. He had a golden core now. He didn't only have demonic cultivation anymore. He could ask Lan Wangji to cleanse the resentful energy from his body and then he would probably not have the problem of becoming cold at the slightest breeze. At least not until he used demonic cultivation again. It would however make using his demonic cultivation a bit more difficult since he would have to use only resentful energy from the environment instead of energy that he had already integrated with. It would take a bit more effort and not respond quite as quickly and easily until he integrated it again. For now it wasn't really worth the trade off. Maybe after the war was over.

The other thing that couldn't be avoided is that resentful energy was painful. The larger amount he used the more it hurt. Instead of the pleasant thrumming warmth of spiritual energy, resentful energy was sharp and painful when you used it. Small amounts didn't cause Wei Wuxian discomfort anymore. It used to, and he couldn't say whether it stopped hurting or whether his pain tolerance simply started to ignore that level of discomfort. He'd really rather not use it the way he did in the war. Mobilizing that much resentful energy and controlling that many puppets hurt. It hurt so much that it took all of his energy to hide the fact that he was in pain until he collapsed in his tent back at camp like a broken doll. Near as he could tell the resentful energy wasn't actually damaging him, not by then at least. The pain was still awful though.

Wei Wuxian pretended he couldn't see the look Wen Qing was giving him. He knew it wasn't realistic to think that they would find a way to not use his demonic cultivation. He even knew that he probably couldn't avoid forging the Stygian Tiger Amulet. Even still, he couldn't bring himself to say it to Lan Xichen. He had only just been accepted as Lan Wangji's fiance. As much as Wei Wuxian dearly wanted that to be something set in stone, he knew it wasn't. Betrothals can be broken, and him being a demonic cultivator would more than justify ending the engagement.

Wei Wuxian hoped to change a lot of things. He hoped to save the people he cared about. He hoped to be able to keep his golden core and resume life as a normal cultivator after the war. People had asked him to do that many times and he hoped this time he could actually do it. However, he wasn't sure that was actually going to be enough. He could stop practising demonic cultivation, but demonic cultivation wasn't the same as cultivating with spiritual energy. It wasn't like removing the energy from within him made him unable to perform it. It only made it a bit more difficult. Once you knew how to do it, you could do it. That's why becoming a powerful demonic cultivator was much faster than becoming a powerful cultivator of spiritual energy. Not that many people had been able to do it without getting themselves or others killed.